They were just 'the aliens' at first. They came in one big ass ship, we weren't surprised, we say them coming. Their hive ship was as big as a small moon, AFASA measured the thing at just under 120 miles in diameter, and it wasn't alone. Pictures from Hubble and Hubble II revealed that the hive ship had an escort of smaller ships. These smaller ships were 'only' a kilometer long. Not many people were expecting them to be coming in peace, it was pretty obvious to even the most generous proponents of the benevolent alien that these guys meant business. We lost contact with the colonies, the Jovian moons went silent first. Not many people were horribly upset about that since mostly it was just Androsynth living out in the cold in their habitats and moon bases. They weren't real people, and no one expected them to put up a fight. They also liked to forget that until the appearance of the aliens, that the Androsynth were considered the greatest threat to peace on Earth and this fear was the driving force behind the Near Earth Space Supremacy Act. That paranoia would pay off, in the end.

The MiGouAccording to scientists the migou are a cryophilic species more closely related to fungi and lichens than to mammals or humans. They have an insectile body layout, with six legs, antennae, and vestigial wings. Their basic technology is well advanced ahead of human technology, but it does have a number of idiosyncratic flaws. Some scientists and experts believe that the MiGou are space scavengers, rather than creating their own technology, they absorb the technology of aliens they encounter. Proof of this was confirmed by refugees from the outer reaches of the solar system. Destroyed MiGou mecha contain dimensional engines reverse engineered from Eurasian Alliance designs. They can't create, so they steal and they improve.

We hailed the lead ship of the MiGou armada, our own ships moving into position to resist them. It was desperate, but we were just buying time, by sheer numbers alone they would win, even if our ships were better, which they weren't. I would have fought on board the 23-616, a missile frigate. She was destroyed in the first volley from the alien warships. I lost almost all of my friends that day. The aliens won, but it wasn't a piece of cake for them. We took a toll on them. Our ships that held the line were destroyed to the last, but there are quite a few derelicts floating around Jupiter that don't have human names and don't have human corpses in them. A few of our boys got in close enough to hit the Hive ship itself.

Andrew 2256, Androsynth refugee, Ganymede Colony

MarsThe next target had to Mars, given the large number of ships present there, representing the Androsynth, the Atlantic Federation, the Neo-Soviet Empire, and the ACPS. The battle was a disaster for humanity. The different factions didn't cooperate with each other and each assaulted the alien armada piecemeal. The MiGou responded with their typical flawless coordination and decimated all of the fleets and scoured the planet of human colonies. The martian moons were subdued with ease, until the UAC Advanced Energy Research Station detonated an experimental weapon that caused a massive spatial implosion. A number of MiGou ships were swallowed, destroyed, or crippled by the event. Deimos also vanished in the implosion.

An Unexpected TargetThe next stage of the invasion did not go as expected. The Atlantic Federation prepared to defend its population cores, the Eurasian Alliance, ACPS, and the Neo-Soviet Empire all prepared to do the same. But the MiGou fleet settled into an uncontested orbit over Antarctica. The MiGou were apparently taken by surprise by the lack of human defenses over the southern pole.

The next few months became a stalemate between the various superpowers and the MiGou probing defenses, battles were fought over Patagonia, South Africa, and Australia, with the MiGou overall winning, but in each scenario taking losses. The Battle of Johannesburg proved to be a costly victory for the MiGou as their forces were faced by the combined Atlantic Federation and Eurasian Alliance fleets as well as the South African United Republics. A counterassault eventually retook Jo-Burg from the MiGou, again being costly for both sides involved. Morale was high on the Human side as even though the aliens had the advantage they were not invincible.

The Psi InitiativePsychic and para-psychic powers and abilities, and to a lesser extent, magic, had slowly become accepted in the mainstream. Human cloning had created the Androsynth, and advances in technology had created synthetic intelligence and cheap Limited Artificial Intelligence. Magic wasn't so far fetched, in light of things such as the Atlantic Federation's arc reactor tech and the leaps made in Dimensional Technology by the Eurasian Alliance simply made the impossible suddenly possible. Science had taken photographs of the human soul, nanotechnology cured incurable diseases.

Then everyone was surprised when the MiGou demonstrated their own psychic potential.

The swarm fleets moved in masse to invade the airspace of the Neo-Soviet empire, laying waste to Moscow and surrounding cities. The fight was brutal until the soviets inexplicably surrendered, and their military joined the MiGou forces. Messages were sent calling all deployed soviet units back to the motherland, from diplomats to submarine and space forces. It was not long before the trick was discovered, the MiGou had deployed psychic dominators and psi-emitters to take control of the heart of soviet powers.